


Strays and Waifs and the People In-between

by Amemait



Series: Dan and Death [6]
Category: The Sandman (Comics), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:11:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cats have worshipers. Had. Once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strays and Waifs and the People In-between

It’s a very wet night when he comes home and encounters it huddled against the wind and rain in the small lee the building gives. The cat stares at him.  
  
Dan sighs. He’s not a cat person, he really isn’t. Laurie was, sort of. Adrian certainly was, but he’s not thinking about Adrian right now, or Laurie, because both of them hurt to think about in their own special way.  
  
Briefly, he wonders if Walter liked cats. He knows Rorschach had no fondness for dogs. Especially towards the end.  
  
Perhaps not. He didn’t like Adrian’s cat, after all.  
  
But the stray looks up at him hungrily, and lets out an incredibly piteous ‘mroooooow’ and tries to rub itself against his pant legs. It’s surprisingly clean for such a dreary day.  
  
There’s been a lot of dreary days since the ...Incident. Dan tries not to think too hard about the clouds, or about why the sunrises and sunsets are so much more stunning than he remembers. He tries to tell himself that he just never really looked at them before, but knows that’s a lie.  
  
“Okay. Okay! I’ll get you something to eat. How does some chicken sound, huh?” But no milk; he remembers Adrian mentioning in passing that most cats are actually intolerant to cow’s milk, and that’s all he has in the house. Understandably.  
  
The cat purrs as though it understands him, and rubs up against his legs more.  
  
“Okay, okay, but you can’t come in. I’ll feed you on the window sill or something.”  
  
Laurie sometimes got Goat’s milk and yoghurt, because she was used to expensive things like that, but he’s not sure what that would do to a cat’s insides.  
  
The cat has ignored him, dashing inside and purring like an outboard motor, switching attention between Dan and the refrigerator like it can’t decide which is more important.  
  
“Hey, you must’ve been a housecat or something, huh? Where’s your person, you know?” Dan asks, setting some chicken onto a saucer and a rammikin of tap water out for the cat. What the hell, it’s not as though he’s going to be making anything especially fancy in the things, he’s not so much into making the fancy desserts like Laurie was.  
  
The cat purrs as it devours the chicken, then laps up a bit of the water like it’s never tasted something that didn’t come off the concrete streets.  
  
“You like that, huh?”  
  
The cat purrs again, and Daniel ponders briefly why he’s talking to the thing. Not as though it can understand him, after all. Then it rubs against his legs again, and Dan resists the urge to pick it up. He’ll have to wash everything he’s got on, even the shoes, just in case it’s got fleas or something, he doesn’t really want to bring the cat up to his face to more closely check.  
  
In fact, why has he let the cat in in the first place? After all, he is very much not a cat person.

“Okay. Well, you... go on then. Shoo. I’m going to take a shower and then go to bed, you can get out through the window if you like or whatever.”  
  
The cat jumps up onto the counter, then places its front paws on his shoulder and licks with an oddly-gentle tongue at the skin just below his right eye, right where she had touched that night she’d stopped by his rooftop just to say hello and he’d made her coffee and talked about lots of things and nothing in particular and then walked her to the door-  
  
And then the cat presses the top of its head to that spot, and dashes out the open window, and Dan resigns himself to a very long shower.  
  
-  
  
“You called?” She is standing on the rooftop, her hair wild but untouched by the elements raging about her. Bast pulls herself to her full height.  
  
“I am sorry for using him in that manner, but I did not know how to reach you otherwise.”  
  
She raises her eyebrows.  
  
“Other than the simple way. I have no wish to take my first and last visit to your realm so soon, My Lady.”  
  
She tilts her head.  
  
“You asked to speak with me. In a manner no other would dare try, no less. I assume you wish to enquire of something close to your heart, for you to use him.”  
  
Bast dips her head, and a flash of lightning glints off her collar and earrings.  
  
“Your brother.”  
  
“What of him?”  
  
“I merely wish to ask after him. Ask if I could help him. Please, My Lady.”  
  
“He wishes no help. He seems to feel he can make his way out of this on his own. The fool.”  
  
“He has ever been my friend, and good to me as such. I would not ask anything of him that he would not freely give, nor offer that which he would not freely take.”  
  
She considers the Goddess before her, power clearly faded enough that this trip was surely costing her dearly.  
  
“You are wiser than many whom would call my brother friend, good lady Bast.”  
  
Bast dips her head.  
  
“My thanks for the compliment.”  
  
“It was a truth, no thanks are needed,” she brushes off Bast’s words, then turns to look at her more properly. “I, however, thank you for your kindness. You are more than my brother deserves.”  
  
“I would not do that to him, save in jest between us!” Bast protests, but subsides at a look from her.  
  
“I know. And for that I thank you, and it is that which makes you more than he deserves.”  
  
Bast smiles in the way that only cats may smile, earrings jangling as she bends into a short bow.

“I thank you for this audience.”  
  
“Don’t thank me.”  
  
“I shall thank him, of course.”  
  
She smiles at that.  
  
“That would be kind. Good-bye, Bast.”  
  
Death disappears back to the job she did not leave for this meeting, and Bast stays out in the rain for a time before she sets off back to her temple. The Goddess is tired.


End file.
